The greater number of long syllables, combined with the paucity of diphthongs and the consequent monotony of vocalization, and the uniformity of the accent, lent a weight and dignity of movement to the language which well suited the national _gravitas_. The precision of grammatical rules and the entire absence of dialectic forms from the written literature contributed to maintain the character of unity which marked the Roman republic as compared with the multiplicity of Greek states. It was remarked by Francis Bacon that artistic and imaginative nations indulge freely in verbal compounds, practical nations in simple concrete terms. In this respect, too, Latin contrasts with Greek. The attempts made by some of the earlier poets to indulge in novel compounds was felt to be out of harmony with the genius of the language. Composition, though necessarily employed, was kept within narrow limits, and the words thus produced have a sharply defined meaning, wholly unlike the poetical vagueness of some of the Greek compounds. The vocabulary of the language, though receiving accessions from time to time in accordance with practical needs, was rarely enriched by the products of a spontaneous creativeness. In literature the taste of the educated town circles gave the law; and these, trained in the study of the Greek masters of style, required something which should reproduce for them the harmony of the Greek period. Happily the orators who gave form to Latin prose were able to meet the demand without departing from the spirit of their own language.[7]
53. _Cicero and Caesar._--To Cicero especially the Romans owed the realization of what was possible to their language in the way of artistic finish of style. He represents a protest at one and the same time against the inroads of the _plebeius sermo_, vulgarized by the constant influx of non-Italian provincials into Rome, and the "jargon of spurious and partial culture" in vogue among the Roman pupils of the Asiatic rhetoricians. His essential service was to have caught the tone and style of the true Roman _urbanitas_, and to have fixed it in extensive and widely read speeches and treatises as the final model of classical prose. The influence of Caesar was wholly in the same direction. His cardinal principle was that every new-fangled and affected expression, from whatever quarter it might come, should be avoided by the writer, as rocks by the mariner. His own style for straightforward simplicity and purity has never been surpassed; and it is not without full reason that Cicero and Caesar are regarded as the models of classical prose. But, while they fixed the type of the best Latin, they did not and could not alter its essential character. In subtlety, in suggestiveness, in many-sided grace and versatility, it remained far inferior to the Greek. But for dignity and force, for cadence and rhythm, for clearness and precision, the best Latin prose remains unrivalled.